Friday, July 22, 2011

Poor Americans are Gamers, Too

Sam Winstrom — In case you didn't know, there are poor gamers. Conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation has published a report on what it means to be poor in America today. According to the report, households living in poverty have many modern amenities including air conditioning, cable TV and video game consoles.The report is meant to show that the standards of living for the poor are in many cases better than most would imagine, but is a minority of impoverished families owning some sort of video game console really unexpected? Technology prices are going down. An Xbox 360 can be picked up for around $100 and consoles from the previous generation go for even less.The report is based on the 2005 census which shows that 29.3% of poor U.S. households have video game consoles—the same amount that have internet service. 53.9% of poor households with children have a video game system in the house.

Bah...y'know, its' this whole "things aren't as bad as they seem" take that screws things up. Sure, all these poor households have video game systems - they're cheap as hell in some places, they're almost all used, and they some have to be fixed up a ton for it to work.

Also, bargain bin vidyuh gaems range from 2-5 bucks depending on if its' a pawn shop or gamestop or online.

On the other hand, this also means the developers (I can't believe I'm saying this) lose out on a ton of money since the majority of the public are going to buy second-hand or used rather than new. If things were as good as the government would like you to think then said poor homes would be able to afford new games the moment they come out, thus begetting statistics that are far more honest rather than just what people could afford...

What sucks is that developers are going to start imposing a pay to play on used copies, basically a disc will pair with a console for a single "passport to play". And so once a game is sold used, 1 game buyers will pay less and likely still charge a premium price, and then once the buyer gets it home they'll have to pay an extra 10 bucks or so to play online. See Kotaku article http://kotaku.com/5821620/used-copies-of-ubisofts-latest-games-will-require-a-10-passport-to-play-online